Better,and easier, to say we should admit we have made mistakes, both British and Irish. That was the message and will be the message. We all hurt each other. Let us make it better. And that is obviously including the British, who have their own role to sort out.

I am very happy with this formulation and I suspect McGuinness would have been too.

His movement from overt violence was not made willingly. There was no transformation on a road to Damascus, He only abandoned terrorism because the IRA had lost the war and he wanted to salvage what he could, both for his party and for himself.

As for "current Republican emphasis on the importance of equality" people should realise that they are using 1984-speak when they talk of equality. We saw their equality from Conor Murphy, Gildernew and Ruane.

I would argue that, while McGuinness was not ready to give apologies, this was because he felt apologies were inappropriate (because he or at least the people he represented believed that they were the more wronged and so did not need to apologise), rather than because he continued to believe that the violence was justified.

If you would argue that Adams still believes the violence was justified, I would be unable to disagree. But McGuinness recognised that the killings could be seen as murder. I believe we should ponder the implications of that and recognise that sometimes it may be difficult to say sorry.

Indeed, it may be that it is often that the more solid is one's own position, the easier it is to say sorry. It was relatively easy for Cameron to say sorry about Bloody Sunday in part because doing so did not in any significant way undermine the moral authority of the government - yes, it has its flaws, but it is a modern democracy with rule of law and checks and balances.

I strongly disagree with your assumption that a Republican viewpoint must see McGuinness’ earlier actions as "justified".

The turn the "provisionals" took following the '69 split went abominably far beyond using force in defense and even justified retaliation.

That turn may have been justified for a very short period of time when the old IRA failed to protect the communities in their remit.

But the continued and bloody adherence to this "turn", when the initial exigency passed, when all possibly adequate justification had passed, when extreme youth and naivety were not mitigating factors, was never ever justified by any viewpoint other than a crass, peasant-minded, murderous, idiot's viewpoint.

The "atonement" is a separate matter. That atonement is the only factor any thinking person was ever interested in or gave credence to.

His movement from overt violence was not made willingly. There was no transformation on a road to Damascus, He only abandoned terrorism because the IRA had lost the war and he wanted to salvage what he could, both for his party and for himself.

As for "current Republican emphasis on the importance of equality" people should realise that they are using 1984-speak when they talk of equality. We saw their equality from Conor Murphy, Gildernew and Ruane.

So kind of on that topic, Cruimh, what do you think about a United Ireland out there in County Londonderry which I am presuming is not ironic? It's (UI) been in the news recently quite a bit as something inevitable which we all better get used to. How are you getting ready?

I strongly disagree with your assumption that a Republican viewpoint must see McGuinness’ earlier actions as "justified".

I should have been more carefully in my wording. I would agree that, while some Republicans saw the PIRA campaign as justified, many (OIRA etc) did not. Indeed, it is very interesting to note the complexities of the fact that Sinn Fein's vote has been much higher after the renunciation of violence (25% and more) than it ever was during the violence (10-15%), suggesting that many current Sinn Fein supporters never agreed with the violence.

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